They'll Call Me Freedom
by rebecca-in-blue
Summary: "Out of the darkness, I came the farthest." My take on how Gavroche sees the world, based on the 2012 film. A songfic to K'naan's Just Like a Waving Flag.


This is a sort of character sketch of Gavroche, based on several of his scenes in the 2012 film. I loved the brotherly friendship that it portrayed between him and Courfeyrac, which I haven't seen in any other production. This story is also a songfic to "Wavin' Flag," by K'naan. Just for clarification, this song has two versions: the original lyrics released in 2008, and the revised lyrics written to celebrate the World Cup in 2010. Although I love both versions, this story takes its lyrics from the original song, which I think is _so_ Gavroche.

(For my own reference: 67th fanfiction, 10th story for _Les Miserables_.)

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Born to a throne, stronger than Rome  
But violent prone, poor people zone  
But it's my home, all I have known  
Where I got grown, streets we would roam

For as long as he could remember, the streets of Paris had been his only home. He supposed that was why he knew them so well. He liked to brag to the big boys – and sometimes to the other little street-urchins, too – that no one else in Paris knew the city as well as he did. After all, it was true. No two street corners were the same to him. No two alley-ways were the same. He could tell just from looking at a lamp-post whether it was wide enough for his small body to hide behind. He could tell just from touching a rain-pipe whether it was sturdy enough for his light frame to climb up.

In the whole city, nothing that he saw was ever lost on him, and so he was never lost.

Out of the darkness, I came the farthest  
Among the hardest survivors  
Learn from the streets, it can be bleak  
Accept no defeat, surrender, retreat

There were a lot of other little boys and girls in Paris who lived on the streets, like him. But they weren't really __like__ him, for none of them could do all the things that he could do. They couldn't all tell just when it was the right moment to turn and run. They couldn't all find an escape way out of a dead-end alley. They didn't all know how to grab onto a fiacre as it passed by, and balance on the back axle for a free ride through the city. They would try to run after him, calling, "Wait, Gavroche!" but he couldn't always wait for them. He had to look out for himself first.

Sometimes, Gavroche tried to help the other street-urchins. He shared food with him, when he had food enough to share, but often, the other children seemed so helpless. He didn't understand why they struggled to do things that came so naturally to him. None of them could keep up with him when they ran, and they got lost so easily. He would tell one of them to met back up with him at the elephant, or at some other safe hiding place, but if they took just a few wrong turns in an unfamiliar neighborhood, they were hopelessly lost.

Occasionally, he would come across their bodies later, huddled beneath a tree or a bridge by the Seine, where they'd frozen or starved to death. Gavroche would slide their eyes shut with his fingers and check to see if they had anything useful on them. Once in a while, they would have a piece of clothing that wasn't completely ragged, and he would take it for himself. He had to look out for himself first. It was the only way to survive.

So we struggling, fighting to eat  
And we wondering when we'll be free  
So we patiently wait for that fateful day  
It's not far away, so for now we say...

There was almost always hunger in his stomach, but there was never boredom in his mind, nor bitterness in his heart. He wasn't hateful towards anyone; he wasn't angry at those who were better off than him. After all, the rich might always be comfortable and well-fed, but they didn't have the same adventures that he did. They didn't have the same freedom. Gavroche felt certain that in all of Paris, no one else was as free and unfettered as he was. He pitied the bourgeois children, with their clean hands and chubby cheeks, who had to spend long boring days in desks at school.

Gavroche thought that there would always be rich people like them and poor people like him. He thought that it was simply the way of the world. But the big boys at the Cafe Musain spoke of revolution, of a world where things could be different, of a tomorrow where everyone would be equal. They told Gavroche that once, the people of France had fought for liberty, and now, they fought for food. But one day, that would all change, and that day, they said, wasn't far away.

...When I get older, I will be stronger  
They'll call me freedom, just like a wavin' flag  
And then it goes back, and then it goes back  
And then it goes back

He thought of Courfeyrac as his champion among the big boys. Courfeyrac was always ruffling his hair, and often he would carry Gavroche on his shoulders when he came to one of their protests outside General Lamarque's house. Of course, Gavroche didn't need anyone to look after him – he could look after himself just fine – but still, whenever he happened to be around Courfeyrac, it gladdened him.

One evening at the Cafe Musain, Courfeyrac put his hands on Gavroche's shoulders and said, "Gavroche, listen. This is important. If you hear that General Lamarque has died, you must get word of it to us as soon as you can, all right? Can you do that?"

"Course," Gavroche answered with a shrug, as confident as ever. "I'll find out soon as it happens, and I'll tell you soon as I find out. It's me who runs this town."

At the nearest table, Grantaire put down another bottle of wine and laughed. "Did you hear that?" he asked Jehan, who was sitting beside him. "'It's me who runs this town.' If he's this cocky _now_, can you imagine what he'll be like when he gets older?"

Jehan laughed, and Gavroche grinned as Courfeyrac ruffled his hair. "When I get older," he answered, "I'll be stronger."

But look how they treat us, make us believers  
We fight their battles, then they deceive us  
Try to control us, but they couldn't hold us  
'Cause we just move forward, like buffalo soldiers

Gavroche was swept along with the big boys' plans for revolution. He helped them turn General Lamarque's funeral into battle. He helped them build their barricades. He told them who Javert really was, and he even brandished his own pistol at the inspector. But he was too young to understand that he didn't share the same righteous anger, the same fierce beliefs, that his friends did. He was too young to even realize that he was only going along with their rebellion because he saw it all as another adventure.

He wasn't afraid the next morning, when he crept out from the shelter of the barricade, right in front of the National Guardsmen and their guns, to fetch the fresh gunpowder. For just as he'd never known boredom or bitterness, he'd never known fear, either. Why should he? Gavroche had survived so many close calls and gotten himself out of so many scrapes that he'd come to think he was invincible. Whenever he tripped or stumbled, it always worked out perfectly for him, for he fell right into place. He was lucky, and his luck would never run out.

Just before he fell in front of the National Guardsmen, he heard, from the barricade behind him, Courfeyrac scrambling to get him, screaming his name.

When I get older, I will be stronger  
They'll call me freedom, just like a wavin' flag  
And everybody will be singing it  
And you and I will be singing it  
And we all will be singing it

And he was right, of course — just like always. He fell, between the barricade and the guardsmen, but he fell right into place. For suddenly, he found himself atop a new barricade, bigger and grander than the first, and suddenly, all of his friends from the Cafe Musain were there with him — not just Courfeyrac, but Enjolras too, and Eponine, and everyone. It seemed that the whole world was atop that barricade, singing and waving flags. And Gavroche understood, somehow, that they had left their old world behind; they were in a new, better place now, the world that they had spoken of, where everybody was equal and nobody had to hunt for food. Gavroche didn't understand exactly how they had come to be here, but it didn't matter, for he felt like freedom itself, as he waved his flag overhead.

**FIN**

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Random P.S. I first heard this song (albeit not the lyrics used here, but the World Cup lyrics) sung by campers at Henry S. Jacobs Reform Jewish Summer Camp. I pray that they will never stop singing it.


End file.
